The U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory will be working to design a new generation refrigerator.Officials said the current refrigeration process has basically been unchanged for more than 100 years.  It takes a lot of energy and creates a lot of heat to keep things cool.The goal is to discover and development more environmentally friendly and energy-efficient refrigeration technologies.The CaloriCool research group will be looking into caloric cooling technology."There is a technical revolution right now as breakthroughs in data science and materials science combine to provide breakthroughs in applied research," said Mark Johnson, Director of the Advanced Manufacturing Office for EERE. "As Ames is a globally recognized leader in the basic discoveries for caloric materials, which if developed could be an important technology for our energy future, we are pleased to see them engaging with industry to accelerate these discoveries towards potential applications."Researchers said 20-30 percent of the energy in the USA is used for cooling.Led by Ames Laboratory, CaloriCoolTM includes Pacific Northwest and Oak Ridge National Laboratories, University of Maryland, Pennsylvania State University, United Technologies Research Center, GE Research, Astronautics Corporation of America, and Citrine Informatics.Ames Laboratory is a U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science national laboratory operated by Iowa State University.